Careers at Hartlepool Power Station could be beckoning for ambitious students

A careers boost could be on the way for students in Hartlepool thanks to the town’s power station.
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Aspiring engineers will soon gain an insight into what a potential career at the power station could look like and that is thanks to the efforts of 14 mentors from EDF which owns the plant.

Staff from the station have teamed up with Hartlepool Sixth Form College to offer mentoring opportunities.

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It is the latest offer in a project which originally started in 2012. That is when Hartlepool College invited students and parents to learn about the mentoring opportunity – and more than 200 people attended.

The latest set of students to have taken on mentoring opportunities at Hartlepool Power Station.The latest set of students to have taken on mentoring opportunities at Hartlepool Power Station.
The latest set of students to have taken on mentoring opportunities at Hartlepool Power Station.

Rob Railston, who is Hartlepool’s engineering manager, was once an apprentice engineer himself and told how it had benefitted him.

He said: “As a young person who started off as an apprentice, I would have appreciated something like the mentorship programme to allow me to network with experienced mentors who could share their knowledge, expertise and educational paths with me.”

Students at Hartlepool Sixth Form College were asked to submit a CV and answer three sets of questions. After that, they were then shortlisted and interviewed.

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Charlotte McKenna, who came through the scheme herself, said: “I went to Hartlepool Sixth Form College and didn’t know what I wanted to do, so it was an insight into the industry for me.”

Charlotte added: “Leonie Perry was my mentor and she showed me different departments to give me an insight into what was available at the station.

“The mentoring scheme helped me to get onto the EDF graduate scheme, which landed me in the job I am in today.”

Charlotte said she would ‘encourage anyone who is looking at STEM careers to look into the mentoring and graduate scheme.”

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The students who are chosen for this year’s project will get to work with their mentors for the next 18 months and they will gain an understanding of life on a nuclear power station.

The aim of the programme is to encourage students to follow a career within engineering.

That could be either with EDF or with other engineering businesses in the Hartlepool area.

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